Entries from April 2006 ↓

(Well . . . sorta.)

Many of you who read this will remember a site called “The Discerning Reader”. In its original format, it was a great, competitively-priced store for good (ie: not the usual crap) Christian books and music. It was shut down a little over a year ago, the domain name was put up for sale, and it lay idle for over a year.

Well, Tim Challies announced today that he has bought the discerningreader.com domain and is re-purposing the site as a repository for book reviews, previews, and recommendations, in order to make us more . . . well, discerning readers.

From the announcement:

As you may know, one of my passions is reading. I absolutely love to read and to help others find books that are worth reading. With tens of thousands of Christians books hitting the shelves every year, it is becoming increasingly difficult to sort the good from the bad and the better from the best. This is where Discerning Reader comes in. It is a site that features reviews written by discerning readers. There are currently several hundred reviews available with many others to be added in the near future. There are author biographies as well as a whole list of new (or upcoming features).

So, I’m really excited for this. It’s a great-looking site, as we can expect from Tim, and the reviews are top-notch. Add Discerning Reader 2.0 to your bookmarks, and visit often.

The Miami Herald has a story this weekend about a church in Cooper City, FL (near my old stomping grounds of Coral Springs) that spent $35,000 on a campaign to give away $10 Starbucks gift cards for the purpose of attracting new visitors to its Easter weekend services. What do you think of this idea?

I’ll pretend that someone asked my opinion and say that I find it a bit ill-conceived, like most megachurch marketing these days. See, the past twenty-plus years have brought us what’s been termed the “seeker-sensitive” movement in evangelical America. This movement is well-intentioned, in that its focus is to draw unchurched people into the church, get the Gospel into them, and turn them into disciples of Jesus. At the same time, its execution often focuses too heavily on one demographic to the neglect of another (usually age-based), markets and caters to primarily people’s “felt needs” or desires (like free coffee, for instance), or at its worst, neglects those who already believe. Call me crazy, but scripture seems to demonstrate that a church’s “target audience” should be the church (ie: believers). Yes, Jesus told us to make disciples of all nations, but that does not end with evangelism or a “decision for Christ”. That is but the beginning of disciple-making. Now, in a sense, every sermon should be “evangelistic”, in that it should focus on the Gospel — the Good News of Christ’s victory over death and atonement for the sin of all who’ll believe — and how it applies to a particular biblical passage and to our lives. But in that same sense, everyone needs to be evangelized every week: believers and non-believers alike. We all need the Gospel all of the time — some for the first time, others as a “refresher”.

Back to the Starbucks Card church: this just seems like another well-intentioned attempt to make church and the Gospel “relevant” enough to draw younger people in. The thing is, the Gospel is relevant and always will be. We don’t need a “Gospel 2.0″. There is no upgrade available. We already have the latest and greatest version, and have for a while now. We don’t need to primarily target people’s “felt needs”. We need to target their greatest need. They don’t primarily need to know how to make their marriages better, or how to be better parents, or how to best serve the poor, though those are all good and important things. Primarily, though, people need Jesus — all of these other things are outworkings (or “inworkings”) of following him.

Still, don’t get me wrong . . . some may come in for a free latté and end up hearing the Gospel for the first time and meet Jesus then and there. Praise the Lord if he decides to use this venture to save even one. Still, the methodology seems a little silly to me. The Gospel is “foolishness” enough in and of itself . . . do we really need to add our own?

(HT: StarbucksGossip)

tags: church marketing, Starbucks, Southern Baptist Convention, Southern Baptists, Florida Baptist Convention, Florida Baptists, Flamingo Road Church, seeker sensitive, seeker-sensitive

“A heretic is a man who sees things with his own eyes.”

This was almost certainly intended in some rebellious way, but the funny thing is, Proverbs tells me that this is a true statement . . . which makes “seeing things with one’s own eyes” a bad, bad thing.

Why in the world is this (awesome) tie $96?!

(That’s “on vacation” for those of you who either didn’t take or failed freshman French.)

An old friend of Amy’s got married today, and we’re in Virginia Beach, VA to join in the festivities. We swung through DC on the way down and took a trip to the National Zoo to see the pandas (and y’know . . . the other animals). Zoe was into the elephants. I was not. Our travel was thankfully safe and uneventful, our hotel suite is right on the beach, and the weather’s been nice. We’ll be going to church with the family of the bride tomorrow morning, hanging out on the beach one more day, and headed back to Cowtown on Monday.

In other news, I haven’t even started my new job yet and I’m already starting to feel seriously inadequate to the task that God is calling me to. (I even hesitate to say that “God is calling me to” this . . . that implies absolute certainty.) Will I be able to handle the study and the academic work? What business do I have working for a church, anyway? Does God want me to be a pastor some day? A church planter? If so, IS HE CRAZY?!

I’m betting that these are thoughts that every minister of the Gospel has struggled with at some time or another, though, so I’m not despairing . . . just . . . ready to dive in.

I’m seriously thinking of going to Reform and Resurge next month in Seattle. I don’t have much time to register, so I guess I’ll have to decide soon. Bleah. Decisions.

My friend Luke, a church planter with the Christian & Missionary Alliance in my hometown of Birmingham, AL, recently posted his “Top Ten Ways To Fight Boredom in District Conference”.

I may have to employ these when and if I tag along with Greg to presbytery meetings.

10. Fall Asleep, this option only works if you don’t snore!

9. Play “I spy with my little eye” game.

8. Drink a lot of coffee or any beverage and time how long you can hold your pee before having to run out scream!

7. Practice your paper airplane making with the annual report

6. Watch an episode of “Lost” on your ipod. Just try not to gasp too loud.

5. Find a wireless hotspot to upload your latest blog.

4. Count the number of “other” people asleep

3. Sit across the room from your friend and make funny faces at each other.

2. Randomly scream out your favorite lines from the “The Princess’ Bride” and see who finishes the line for you.

1. Coffee Break! Starbucks!

I don’t watch Lost, but I’ll have my video iPod at that point, so I might give it a try. Also, there’s no such thing as a “coffee break” for me . . . coffee is something I would need to take a break from, not to.